| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: "But they used to be magnificent!"
"Yes indeed, we have Aspern's word for that." And as I looked again
at the old woman's wrappings I could imagine that she had not wished
to allow people a reason to say that the great poet had overdone it.
But I did not waste my time in considering Miss Bordereau, in whom
the appearance of respiration was so slight as to suggest that no human
attention could ever help her more. I turned my eyes all over the room,
rummaging with them the closets, the chests of drawers, the tables.
Miss Tita met them quickly and read, I think, what was in them; but she did
not answer it, turning away restlessly, anxiously, so that I felt rebuked,
with reason, for a preoccupation that was almost profane in the presence
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: slight wooden fence, was the poor sort of dwelling usually built by
small landowners in the neighborhood of Paris. It had been hastily
constructed, with no architectural design, of cement and rubble, the
materials commonly used near Paris, where, as at Nanterre, they are
extremely abundant, the ground being everywhere broken by quarries
open to the sky. This is the ordinary hut of the civilized savage. The
house consisted of a ground floor and one floor above, with garrets in
the roof.
The quarryman, her deceased husband, and the builder of this dwelling,
had put strong iron bars to all the windows; the front door was
remarkably thick. The man knew that he was alone there in the open
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: I'll answer to it. We'll let Colonel Urique keep his money. His little
tin safe is as good as the time-locker in the First National Bank of
Laredo as far as you and me are concerned."
"You're going to throw me down, then, are you?" said the consul.
"Sure," said the Kid cheerfully. "Throw you down. That's it. And now
I'll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel's house
they introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor--a real
room, with a bed and things in it. And before I was asleep, in comes
this artificial mother and tucks in the covers. 'Panchito,' she says,
'my little lost one, God has brought you back to me. I bless His name
forever.' It was that, or some truck like that, she said. And down
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